Rant

   How much backup is too much backup?  As a person who spends most of her waking hours searching for lost items, I believe in backup. I wish regular life had a search engine.   Last year I bought a 2 tetrabyte external hard drive.   (Mathematically speaking, I think that means a gazillion-willion bytes, more that a mortal could possibly use.)  I admit I was smug about my backup.  To free up space on my hard drive (I have an extraordinary number of images stored), I would just transfer files to the external hard drive and put the originals in the trash. 
   It will come as no surprise to anyone but myself that my external hard drive died.  The tech said, 'well you have backup for it, right?'
   'Back up for my backup? How could I, every damn portal on the computer is filled, where would I plug in another back up?'
   'No,' he replied, 'backed up on your computer.'  This  rapidly devolved into a bad "who's on first?" routine.
   It has not been a good day.

Minimalist Me

                         The Shape of Things #1 ©2013

    No one of my acquaintance would consider me a minimalist.  In any regard.  It is probably too late in life to try to curb my 'enthusiasms'.  The other day, Sheep Jones, a friend and an artist of the first rank, was looking at a photo of an intended subject:

I wanted to make the composition more cohesive.  I had the red of the life jacket in one, the red of the oar handle in another, and the reddish wood in the third.  But how to introduce the green into the other two?  Sheep suggested I remove the green altogether.  Remove the oars, ropes and life jackets.  Go minimalist.  Be more contemporary.
    "The Shape of Things #1" was the result.  Sheep agreed if that it doesn't sell in six months, I'm allowed to revert to detail. And if it does sell, I have to do a minimalist series.  Win win.

Unexpected Physics

It's an odd day, violent rain and a husband home, furloughed by the government shut down.  As I exercised in the basement, I listened to a Jay Mohr podcast with "E" of the band  Eels.  Turns out "E's" father (Hugh Everett) was a quantum mechanics physicist, who, at 24,  discovered the concept of parallel universes.  The theory was shot down by a contemptuous Niels Bohr in the late 50's and Everett's academic career ended.  Hugh Everett died at 51, before the parallel universes theory gained stature.   "E" never knew his father was a "physics rock star", in fact knew little about him.  Disconnected.  His search to understand his father's life and work resulted in documentary "Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives".  Like "E", I knew nothing about physics.  This film,  available on www.eelstheband.com, explains quantum mechanics in a way that even I understood.  His journey is fascinating and endearing.  Towards the end of the film, "E" finally looks through the boxes of his father's papers that have  been moldering in "E's" basement and discovers tape recordings his father made.  It's been 25 years since he heard the sound of his father's voice.  He is reluctant to listen.  He hits 'play' and hears his father talking about the theory to a visitor and, in the background, the sound of "E" playing drums in the basement.
   You never know where exercise will lead you.

Revenge of the Chipmunks

    After four months of tending the vines and fending off hordes of chipmunks, we harvested the tomatoes.  Or rather the forty percent of the tomatoes that hadn't been gnawed or dragged off to the provinces.  Victory was ours!   We gorged on the tomatoes, noon and night.   Turns out my innards are tomato intolerant.  Acutely so.
  There's a lesson to be learned here, but I'll be damned if I want to think about it. 

More than Enough

                            "The Bend, Again"  ©2013

   Years ago, I had an epiphany of sorts, courtesy of a piece in The New Yorker.  It told of a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller at the home of a very wealthy man.  Vonnegut asked if it bothered Heller that the host had made more money in a day than Heller had from all of his Catch-22 royalties.  Heller replied, 'No, because I have something he'll never have.'
   'What's that?' asked Vonnegut.
   'Enough,'  Heller answered.
   I have 'enough' but I need to remind myself periodically.  In my frenzy to sell more paintings, I have ignored Heller's message.  It isn't what I want to sell, but that I can paint.  Fifteen years ago, I was a writer.  I dabbled in art to feel closer to my recently deceased mother (herself a professional artist).  My whole life changed.  I studied at the Art League of Alexandria, never allowing myself to hope I would be good enough to make the leap.  Years of classes, encouragement and passion, drove me.  In 2006, I was juried into the Torpedo Art Center. I am a resident artist.
   Even though I grouse about nearly everything, I can write and I can paint.  And, surely, that is enough.

BATS!

The tenants called. There are bats everywhere in the Vineyard house.  The men of their family are away, and the ten women and babies are not up to shooing bats with brooms.   The animal control warden, called by the tenant, exhorted them to abandon the house. There aren't a lot of places to seek refuge in the high season of August.  Odd  things happen whenever this family rents the house. The caretaker helpfully asked them why they keep coming back.
 Replacing the ajar attic hatch would not be too much to expect from a caretaker.  But alas, ours has a bum leg and will not climb a ladder. Reputable repairmen, (though not apparently animal control agents), are loathe to wait in ferry lines to come over to Chappy.  Obama is at the other end of the Vineyard but appears to jam traffic at our end as well.  We called everyone who has worked on the house with its storied past but no one can get there for 'weeks'.
One sister in-law thought we should explain what a vital role bats play in the environment.  Did I mention that one of the tenants had previously been bitten by a rabid bat?

Tomato Debacle

   I love summer tomatoes, so meaty and juicy.  What could be more fun than growing your own?  I admit I have a spotty history where gardening is concerned.  As a newlywed in the 70's, I tried to grow vegetables.  The zucchini developed a manifest destiny complex, over running all other plants, indeed, other yards.  And, I'm quite sure I was the only gardener in upstate New York who had to stake her corn.  It keeled over with near passion.
   In recent years we grew just tomatoes.  We tried the front yard, the side yard, the back yard.  Something was truly enjoying our tomatoes but it was not us.
   This year, my husband erected a six foot wire mesh fence in the back yard.    When we left for vacation we had several plump tomatoes that we were sure would be ripe by our return.  On return, it was  a bit surprising to discover there were no big tomatoes in the garden, ripe or otherwise.  I suspected the neighbors. 
    The culprits, we soon learned, were swat teams of chipmunks. ( I always hated that Alvin song.)  People think chipmunks are cute.  They are not.  They are rodents with good PR.  We doused the ground with fox urine and liquid fence.  They practically laughed in our faces.  In  past years, animals would eat ripening tomatoes.  Now they dropped big green tomatoes to the ground, ate half and left the rest for us.  I can't tell you how depressing this was.
   We tried every humane method possible to dissuade the chipmunks, but they kept coming in waves, like they were being bussed in from the Virginia battlefields.  We resorted to some not strictly humane methods.  So far, so good.  Except this morning in the Washington Post there was an article about evil hornworms devastating the local tomato crop.  How do farmers thwart the vermin and get those juicy tomatoes to the market?
    Next year, we are planting wildflowers.